Beginning of Computer Art

During the 1960s, a few large American computer companies provided equipment to a number of experimental filmmakers. In 1966 IBM set up a research program and hired John Whitney, who made films like Permutations (1968). A few years earlier, Stan VanDerBeek had started to make Poem Fields (1964–70) using the Beflix language devised by Kenneth Knowlton, an engineer at Bell Telephone Laboratories. His experiments were among the first real films made using computer animation. They are abstract films conceived in the pure "underground" spirit.

But they cannot be said to mark the beginning of computer art. American Ben P. Laposky had actually made the first electronic abstracts in 1952; then, in 1960, Germans Kurd Alsleben and William A. Fetter made the first synthetic images on a computer.

At the NFB, starting in the 1960s, computers were used for experimental films. Bernard Longpré (Test 0558, 1965) and Pierre Hébert (Around Perception, 1968) were pioneers. In neither case, however, did the computer actually generate pictures. For Around Perception, Hébert used the computer to create random juxtapositions of shapes cut out of paper.

It was not until 1971 and Metadata, by Peter Foldès, that computer graphics arrived. Foldès, a Hungarian filmmaker who had worked in France, Great Britain and the United States, went on to make Hunger (1974), a film denouncing overconsumption, in which the filmmaker continued the technical research he had begun with Metadata.

In 1981 Pierre Moretti made Graphic Variations on Telidon as a test to illustrate the graphic possibilities of Telidon, a videotext system supported by the Canadian government. In the 1980s, on the initiative of producer Robert Forget, the NFB produced animated segments for Transition (Colin Low, 1987, in stereo) and Emergency (Colin Low and Tony Ianzelo, 1988). For Emergency, Doris Kochanek's animation was transferred to Imax film, a first.

At the same time, Forget produced If Only ... (Marc Aubry, 1988), in which computer animation techniques were applied at some stages of the traditional animation process. Once the animator had done the key drawings on paper, they were digitized and the in-betweens were computer generated. Similarly, inking and painting were also done by computer. Aubry's film showed how the computer could increase the number of layers of images without running up against the density limitations and handling problems inherent in cel animation. In the years following the film, in fact, the entire animation industry gradually shifted to computer processes for these stages. Among the large number of films illustrating this technological shift are Overdose (Claude Cloutier, 1994), The Boy Who Saw the Iceberg (Paul Driessen, 2000), Flux (Chris Hinton, 2002), Noël Noël (Nicolas Lemay, 2003) and Stormy Night (Michèle Lemieux, 2003).

In 1989 Marc Aubry and Michel Hébert made Anniversary, for which they used 3-D computer graphics. Along with Mirrors of Time (Jean-Jacques Leduc, 1990), this was the NFB's foray into the field. Other films followed, such as La Salla (Richard Condie, 1996), Cuckoo, Mr. Edgar! (Pierre M. Trudeau, 1999) and Showa Shinzan (Alison Reiko Loader, 2002). Chris Landreth's Ryan, a documentary on animator Ryan Larkin, completed in 2004, is the acme of composite imagery.

In the 1990s, the computer became one more tool in the hands of filmmakers using traditional techniques. By the end of the decade, most animators were using computers one way or another to make their films. The role of computers became more general and diverse. For example, for La plante humaine (1996), Pierre Hébert digitized his direct-on-film etched images and did the painting by computer. John Weldon, for The Hungry Squid (2002), developed "recyclomation," an ingenious way of working with puppets, photographs and simple software applications. For L’Éternel et le brocanteur (2002), Michel Murray combined live action, photographs and digitized images to create an amazing science-fiction world. Some animators, like Nicolas Brault (Antagonia, 2002), also draw directly on a graphic tablet.

The constant desire of NFB artists to experiment and innovate technically can be seen in the use, for instance, of Imax's SANDDE (Stereoscopic Animation Drawing Device) system, which makes it fairly simple to draw animated films in relief. Munro Ferguson (Falling in Love Again, 2003; June, 2003) and Paul Morstad (Moon Man, 2004) have successfully used this system, developed by Roman Kroitor.

Beginning of Computer Art

Birth of the Movie Industry

The first cinematograph screenings organized for a paying public took place in Paris on 28 December 1895 and which made an immediate attraction, showing in London's West End a few months later. Within a year, Qeen Victoria saw films made by the Uumi re brothers at Windsor Castle, which were accompanied by a full orchestra. These early films were projected at 16 frames per second and were about 50 feet in length, lasting about 50 seconds. Within a few years the average length of films had increased, together with the number of cinemas and other xhibition venues.

The movie industry was born, movies had suddenly become a form of mass Entertainment throughtout the Europe and the USA. At this time audiences saw little difference between live action (real scenes shot with a movie camera) and animation (drawn or painted images photographed frame by frame). The fact that light and shadow on a screen created scenes and people that moved was enthralling enough.

In December 1937 Disney introduced the first full-length feature animation to a marvelling audience the entirely hand-drawn, colour Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. In 1998, some sixty years later, the Disney Studios, with Pixar, achieved another milestone with the first full-length feature 3D computer animation film, Toy story. This time, although the computer-generated toys looked exactly like real toys, the challenge was not so much to create the illustion of reality but to endow the 3D toys with individualistic character and personality, as was so clearly achieved with Snow white. Good characterization is often more difficult to achieve in 3D animation than in 2D work.

From 1902 to 2002 and beyond we have seen the massive growth of an industry and the growth of audience expectatons. Intitially people were enchanted just peering throught a slot and seeing a cycle of hand-drawn images moving. Then they were enthralled by the vision of real things and people moving on a large screen. Now they expect to see the impoosible happen and look utterly real.

Indian Animation Industry

The first animated film from India is considered to be Ek Anek Aur Ekta, a short traditionally animated short educational film released in 1974 from Doordarshan's Film Division. Doordarshan is a government run public television service in India. The film is presented as a fable meant to teach children the value of unity. After its success, more shorts were produced by Doordarshan. This was the first time that original animated films from India were broadcast on national television in the nation's official language, Hindi.

The first Indian animated television series is Ghayab Aaya, aired in 1986 and directed by Suddhasattwa Basu.

The first Indian 3D animated film was Roadside Romeo, which was a joint venture between Yash Raj Films and the Indian division of the Walt Disney Company. It was written and directed by Jugal Hansraj.

Ek Anek aur Ekta
The song - Ek chidiya, anek chidiya even today is remembered by many. It brings back memories of times when we had only one TV channel, Doordarshan.

Compiled History of Animation

1824: Peter Roget presented his paper 'The persistence of vision with regard to moving objects' to the British Royal Society.

1831: Dr. Joseph Antoine Plateau (a Belgian scientist) and Dr. Simon Rittrer constructed a machine called a phenakitstoscope. This machine produced an illusion of movement by allowing a viewer to gaze at a rotating disk containing small windows; behind the windows was another disk containing a sequence of images. When the disks were rotated at the correct speed, the synchronization of the windows with the images created an animated effect.  

1872: Eadweard Muybridge started his photographic gathering of animals in motion.  

1887: Thomas Edison started his research work into motion pictures.  

1889: Thomas Edison announced his creation of the kinetoscope which projected a 50ft length of film in approximately 13 seconds.  

1889: George Eastman began the manufacture of photographic film strips using a nitro-cellulose base.  

1892: Emile Renynaud, combining his earlier invention of the praxinoscope with a projector, opens the Theatre Optique in the Musee Grevin. It displays an animation of images painted on long strips of celluloid.  

1895: Louis and Augustine Lumiere issued a patent for a device called a cinematograph capable of projecting moving pictures.  

1896: Thomas Armat designed the vitascope which projected the films of Thomas Edison. This machine had a major influence on all sub-sequent projectors.  

1906: J. Stuart Blackton made the first animated film which he called "Humorous phases of funny faces." His method was to draw comical faces on a blackboard and film them. He would stop the film, erase one face to draw another, and then film the newly drawn face. The Ôstop-motionÕ provided a starting effect as the facial expressions changed be fore the viewerÕs eyes.  

1908: In France Emile Cohl produced a film, Phantasmagorie which was the first depicting white figures on a black background.  

1910: Emile Cohl makes En Route the first paper cutout animation. This technique saves time by not having to redraw each new cell, only reposition the paper.  

1911: Winsor McCay produced an animation sequence using his comic strip character "Little Nemo."  

1913: J.R. Bray devised "Colonel Heeza Liar," and Sidney Smith created "Old Doc Yak."  

1914: John R Bray applies for a patent on numerous techniques for animation. One of the most revolutionary being the process of printing the backgrounds of the animation.  

1914: Winsor McCay produced a cartoon called "Gertie, The Trained Dinosaur" which amazingly consisted of 10,000 drawings.  

1914: Earl Hurd applies for a patent for the technique of drawing the animated portion of an animation on a clear celluloid sheet and later photographing it with its matching background. [Cel animation]  

1917: The International Feature Syndicate released many titles including "Silk Hat Harry","Bringing Up Father", and "Krazy Kat".  

1919: Pat Sullivan created an American cartoon "Felix the Cat."  

1926: The first feature-length animated film called "El Apostol" is created in Argentina.  

1923: Walt and Roy Disney found Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio.  

1923: Walt Disney extended Max Fleischer's technique of combining live action with cartoon characters in the film "Alice's Wonderland".  

1927: Warner Brothers released "The Jazz Singer" which introduced combined sound and images.  

1928: Walt Disney created the first cartoon with synchronized sound called "Steam Boat Willy".  

1930: The King of Jazz is produced by Universal. In it is a short animated sequence done by Walter Lantz. It is the first animation done with the two strip technicolor process  

1934: Urb Irwek creates a multi-plane camera. This camera is capable of filming several separate layers of cels giving the final frame a truly three dimensional look.  

1943: John and James Whitney produced "Five Abstract Film Exercises."  

1945: Harry Smith produced animation by drawing directly onto film.  

1957: John Whitney used 17 Bodine motors, 8 Selsyns, 9 different gear units and 5 ball integrators to create analog computer graphics.  

1961: John Whitney used differential gear mechanisms to create film and television title sequences.  

1963: Ivan Sutherland and SKETCHPAD at MIT/Lincoln Labs  

1964: Ken Knowlton, working at Bell Laboratories, started developing computer techniques for producing animated movies.  

1972: University of Utah, Ed Catmull develops an animation scripting language and creates an animation of a smooth shaded hand. Ref: E. Catmull, "A System for Computer Generated Movies", Proceedings of the ACM National Conference, 1972. (In the SIGGRAPH 98 Seminal Graphics collection.)  

1972: University of Utah, Fred Parke creates first computer generated facial animation. >Ref: F. Parke, "Computer Generated Animation of Faces", Proceedings of the ACM National Conference, 1972. (In the SIGGRAPH 98 Seminal Graphics collection.)  

1974: National Research Council of Canada releases Hunger/La Faim directed by Peter Foldes and featuring Burtnyk and Wein interactive keyframing techniques. Ref: N. Burtnyk and M. Wein, "Interactive Skeleton Techniques for Enhancing Motion Dynamics in Key Frame Animation", Communications of the ACM, 19(10), October 1976. (In the SIGGRAPH 98 Seminal Graphics collection.)  

1982: Tron, MAGI, movie with CG premise  

1983: Bill Reeves at Lucasfilm publishes techniques for modeling particle systems. "Demo" is Star Trek II: The Wrath of Kahn. The paper also promotes motion blur. Ref: W. Reeves, "Particle Systems -- A Technique for Modeling a Class of Fuzzy Objects", Computer Graphics, 17(3), July 1983. (In the SIGGRAPH 98 Seminal Graphics collection.)  

1984: The Last Starfighter, CG is used in place of models  

1984: Porter and Duff at Lucusfilm publish paper on digital compositing using an alpha channel. Ref: T. Porter and T. Duff, "Compositing Digital Images", Computer Graphics, 18(3), July 1984. (In the SIGGRAPH 98 Seminal Graphics collection.)  

1985: Girard and Maciejewski at OSU publish a paper describing the use of inverse kinematics and dynamics for animation. Their techniques are used in the animation "Eurythmy." Ref: M. Girard and A. A. Maciejewski, "Computational Modeling for the Computer Animation of Legged Figures", Computer Graphics, 19(3), July 1985. (In the SIGGRAPH 98 Seminal Graphics collection.)  

1985: Ken Perlin at NYU publishes a paper on noise functions for textures. He later applied this technique to add realism to character animations. Ref: K. Perlin, "An Image Synthesizer", Computer Graphics, 19(3), July 1985. (In the SIGGRAPH 98 Seminal Graphics collection.)  

1987: John Lasseter at Pixar publishes a paper describing traditional animation principles. "Demos" are Andre and Wally B and Luxo Jr. Ref: J. Lasseter, "Principles of Traditional Animation Applied to 3D Computer Animation", Computer Graphics, 21(4), July 1987. (In the SIGGRAPH 98 Seminal Graphics collection.)  

1987: Craig Reynolds then at Symbolics (now at Dreamworks SKG) publishes a paper on self-organizing behavior for groups. "Demos" are Stanley and Stella and Batman Returns. Ref: C. W. Reynolds, "Flocks, Herds, and Schools: A Distributed Behavioral Model", Computer Graphics, 21(4), July 1987. (In the SIGGRAPH 98 Seminal Graphics collection.)  

1988: Willow uses morphing in live action film  

1992: Beier and Neely, at SGI and PDI respectively publish an algorithm where line correspondences guide morphing between 2D images. "Demo" is Michael Jackson video Black and White. Ref: T. Beier and S. Neely, "Feature-Based Image Metamorphosis", Computer Graphics, 26(2), July 1992. (In the SIGGRAPH 98 Seminal Graphics collection.) v  

1993: Chen and Williams at Apple publish a paper on view interpolation for 3D walkthroughs. Ref: S. E. Chen and L. Williams, "View Interpolation for Image Synthesis", Computer Graphics Proceedings, Annual Conference Series, 1993. (In the SIGGRAPH 98 Seminal Graphics collection.)  

1993: Jurassic Park use of CG for realistic living creatures  

1995: Toy Story first full-length 3D CG feature film

Compiled History of Animation

                                                                                                              

History of Animation

Early examples of attempts to capture the phenomenon of motion drawing can be found in paleolithic cave paintings, where animals are depicted with multiple legs in superimposed positions, clearly attempting to convey the perception of motion.

Five images sequence from a vase found in Iran

A 5,200 year old earthen bowl found in Iran in Shahr-i Sokhta has five images of a goat painted along the sides. This has been claimed to be an example of early animation. However, since no equipment existed to show the images in motion, such a series of images cannot be called animation in a true sense of the word.

The phenakistoscope, praxinoscope, as well as the common flip book were early popular animation devices invented during the 1800s, while a Chinese zoetrope-type device was invented already in 180 AD These devices produced movement from sequential drawings using technological means, but animation did not really develop much further until the advent of cinematography.

There is no single person who can be considered the "creator" of the art of film animation, as there were several people doing several projects which could be considered various types of animation all around the same time.

Georges Méliès was a creator of special-effect films; he was generally one of the first people to use animation with his technique. He discovered a technique by accident which was to stop the camera rolling to change something in the scene, and then continue rolling the film. This idea was later known as stop-motion animation. Méliès discovered this technique accidentally when his camera broke down while shooting a bus driving by. When he had fixed the camera, a hearse happened to be passing by just as Méliès restarted rolling the film, his end result was that he had managed to make a bus transform into a hearse. This was just one of the great contributors to animation in the early years.

An Egyptian burial chamber mural, approximately 4000 years old, showing wrestlers in action. Even though this may appear similar to a series of animation drawings, there was no way of viewing the images in motion. It does, however, indicate the artist's intention of depicting motion.

The earliest surviving stop-motion advertising film was an English short by Arthur Melbourne-Cooper called Matches: An Appeal(1899). Developed for the Bryant and May Matchsticks company, it involved stop-motion animation of wired-together matches writing a patriotic call to action on a blackboard.

J. Stuart Blackton was possibly the first American filmmaker to use the techniques of stop-motion and hand-drawn animation. Introduced to filmmaking by Edison, he pioneered these concepts at the turn of the 20th century, with his first copyrighted work dated 1900. Several of his films, among them The Enchanted Drawing (1900) and Humorous Phases of Funny Faces (1906) were film versions of Blackton's "lightning artist" routine, and utilized modified versions of Méliès' early stop-motion techniques to make a series of blackboard drawings appear to move and reshape themselves. 'Humorous Phases of Funny Faces' is regularly cited as the first true animated film, and Blackton is considered the first true animator.

Another French artist, Émile Cohl, began drawing cartoon strips and created a film in 1908 called Fantasmagorie. The film largely consisted of a stick figure moving about and encountering all manner of morphing objects, such as a wine bottle that transforms into a flower. There were also sections of live action where the animator’s hands would enter the scene. The film was created by drawing each frame on paper and then shooting each frame onto negative film, which gave the picture a blackboard look. This makes Fantasmagorie the first animated film created using what came to be known as traditional (hand-drawn) animation.

Fantasmagorie by Emile Cohl, 1908

Following the successes of Blackton and Cohl, many other artists began experimenting with animation. One such artist wasWinsor McCay, a successful newspaper cartoonist, who created detailed animations that required a team of artists and painstaking attention for detail. Each frame was drawn on paper; which invariably required backgrounds and characters to be redrawn and animated. Among McCay's most noted films are Little Nemo (1911), Gertie the Dinosaur (1914) and The Sinking of the Lusitania (1918).

The production of animated short films, typically referred to as "cartoons", became an industry of its own during the 1910s, and cartoon shorts were produced to be shown in movie theaters. The most successful early animation producer was John Randolph Bray, who, along with animator Earl Hurd, patented the cel animation process which dominated the animation industry for the rest of the decade.

History of Animation